Complementary, alternative medicine common with autism

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many families that have children
with an autism spectrum disorder or other developmental
disability use complementary and alternative treatments,
according to a new study.

Researchers who surveyed Californian families with children
with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other developmental
disability (DD) found that about a third reported using
complementary or alternative treatments. Those therapies ranged
from dietary supplements to invasive and unsafe procedures.

"Complementary and alternative treatments are quite
widespread among all populations, but are especially popular
among families with children with autism spectrum disorders,"
Dr. Kathleen Angkustsiri said.

She is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the
University of California, Davis Medical Center M.I.N.D.
Institute and one of the study's authors.

ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities that create
varying levels of social, communication and behavioral
challenges, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. It estimates that one in 88 children has an ASD.

Some of those symptoms are treated with medications and
therapy, but there is no known cure for autism. And not all
children show dramatic improvement on traditional therapies,
Angkustsiri and her fellow researchers write in the Journal of
Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics.

ASD treatments also require ongoing management and don't
necessarily address other corresponding conditions, such as
anxiety, insomnia and stomach problems.

Because of that, families that have children with ASDs or
other DDs may turn to complementary and alternative medicine.

"We'd like to encourage more conversation between the family
and the doctors," Angkustsiri told Reuters Health.

Data for her team's study came from an existing trial that
included 578 children with a confirmed ASD diagnosis and 125
with a confirmed DD diagnosis. All of the kids were between the
ages of two and five years old and born in California.

The researchers found that children with ASDs were more
likely to receive traditional treatments than children with DDs.
That may be because there are few set standards for caring for
children with DDs, but standards for ASD care include intensive
therapy, the researchers write.

They also found that about 39 percent of kids with ASDs and
about 30 percent of kids with DDs were receiving some sort of
complementary and alternative treatments. The most common of
those was dietary supplements, followed by special diets, such
as gluten-free.

About nine percent of children with ASDs were using some
sort of invasive, disproven or potentially unsafe version of
complementary and alternative medicine, the researchers found.
Those include antifungal medication, vitamin injections and
chelation therapy.

Chelation is a method to remove metals from the body after
mercury or lead poisoning. It hasn't been shown to help kids
with ASDs and carries some safety concerns over kidney damage
and stomach problems (see Reuters Health story of Dec. 21, 2012
here: http://reut.rs/1fyqByP).

None of the children with other types of DDs were receiving
treatments that the researchers considered invasive, disproven
or potentially unsafe.

"That was one of the nice things about our study,"
Angkustsiri said. "When most people think about (complementary
and alternative medicine) the automatic knee-jerk response is
that this is a really dangerous type of treatment, but very few
people were using those invasive treatments."

Children who received more conventional treatments were more
likely to receive complementary or alternative treatments as
well. That, according to Angkustsiri, suggests the additional
treatments were complementing more traditional methods - not
being used as a replacement or alternative.

The researchers found that children whose parents went to
college were more likely to receive complementary and
alternative treatments, compared to those whose parents didn't
go to college.

"They may have more resources, more time, more availability
to go on the Internet and spend the resources to do more,"
Angkustsiri said.

She added that the study can't explain why parents chose
specific treatments. Also, the survey is based on preschool-aged
children, which means rates may be different among older kids
with ASDs or DDs.

"I think it would be really great to have more detail and
survey the parents on their belief and what drives them to
choose different types of treatments," Angkustsiri said.